The “social endogamy” of university students: two out of three marry each other

62% of Spaniards with university studies marry partners with the same academic levelIn the United States, 81% of householders with a university degree, their partner also has a diploma or degreeThe trend is even greater among those whose parents have also gone to college compared to first-generation college couples. People who have gone through university tend to marry people of the same academic level. It may seem obvious, but the figures prove it. Of the 4.2 million married people in Spain who have completed a diploma or degree, 2.6 million are married, civilly or by the Church, with someone with the same level of education, that is, 62%, according to the latest data from the Continuous Household Survey (joint sample of the years 2019 and 2020) provided by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) to NIUS. The total number of married couples in Spain is 9.5 million (19 million people). Of them:In 6.5 million couples, neither spouse has a university degree (in total, 13 million people without university studies).In 1.6 million marriages, one of the two has a university degree (that is, 1.6 million of people with a university degree). In 1.3 million couples, both are (2.6 million people with a degree). And all this happens in a population where the majority of people do not have university studies – only 37% of the population between 25 and 65 years old have a diploma or graduate degree. In other words, university students marry someone of their same academic level despite the fact that they are less likely to find a partner with university studies by chance than without them.”There is a kind of social endogamy. Social strata are like watertight compartments and When a person looks for a partner, they are looking for someone who gives them a certain security, but also elements that they share with them to deal with certain topics and for this, similarities are required in terms of basic knowledge: to discuss politics or topics of the day to day”, explains Mauro Mediavilla, professor of Applied Economics at the University of Valencia and an expert in the evaluation of educational policies. “The relationship environments are marked in many cases by the educational level, but what is basic is not the educational level itself, but what is relevant is the socioeconomic environment that makes one compatible with another person,” he adds. . In the United States the scheme is repeated This does not happen only in Spain. A recent study published by the American research center Pew Research Center ensures that university graduates in the United States tend to marry or partner with other university graduates as well. In 2019, 81% of those who were heads of households with a university degree had a partner who also had a diploma or degree. Perhaps most significantly, the trend is even higher (86%) among those whose parents had also gone to college compared to 73% of those first-generation college heads of households. According to the Pew Research Center analysis, all this is due in part to the type of college and university where they have studied, which makes them contact each other and form relationships. “Physical meeting places are essential. It’s like a club. In order for one to find a partner in a club, both have to be members of that club: to be able to see each other in the pool or on the tennis court. And that comes determined by the socioeconomic environment,” says Mediavilla. The parents’ academic level, the main predictor The truth is that the greatest predictor of a student’s success is the socioeconomic level of their parents, and this has a lot to do with the studies that have studied. It is difficult to move in social circles other than the one you were born with. “In Spain, meritocracy is definitely a myth at an empirical level. The data we have systematically show us how social mobility in our country is very low,” Berna León, doctoral researcher and associate professor at the Institute of Political Studies of Paris. 75% of low-income people in Spain have not been to university. And this despite the fact that in Spain the economic elite is not as linked to the university educational elite as, for example, in the United States, the United Kingdom or France. the variables that are related to the socioeconomic level of a family, which makes the difference: their educational level, if they can help their children with their homework or the aspirations they have for them in the future,” says the author of the report, Professor of Economics of the University of Stockholm José Montalbán. Another report, Transitions to post-compulsory education in Barcelona: different paths, unequal itineraries, directed by Andreu Termes, postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Regional and Metropolitan Studies of Barcelona, ​​concludes that choosing to study Vocational training or at the University is not an obvious, easy choice that occurs at the age of 16, but rather it is a process that accumulates throughout schooling. In students with greater social and academic difficulties, disadvantages accumulate in the form of repetition, poor grades, grouping by levels and also what we call a differential orientation, on which the teacher, in a somewhat simple or binary way, guides the students with best academic profile towards high school, and the one with the worst profile, towards vocational training”, the author assures.